Green Queen 2020 Trend Predictions: The Smartification & Personalisation Of Food

Forget personalised meal delivery, in the future, you will be 3-D printing your bio-bespoke dinner at your favourite restaurant. That’s right, everything on your plate is about to get much ‘smarter.’ With more and more research revealing the extent to which individuals are different from each other, from our response to foods to our unique microbiome makeup, the demand for food made just for you is growing fast. Savvy consumers don’t heed generic nutritional need tables and basic health advice anymore. They are looking for the ultimate customisation.

A current example of this new smart food trend is Japanese startup Open Meals, who is 3D-printing “8-bit sushi” that will debut in their Tokyo restaurant concept Sushi Singularity by 2020. Customers will need to send their biological samples before they visit the restaurant, which will then be analysed by health experts to create a hyper-personalised sushi injected with nutrients that the customers might be lacking in, based on individual diners’ biometric and genomic data. 

Another startup delving into the smart food pie is Alchemy FoodTech. The Singapore-based company is combining biotech and medical technology into everyday foods in order to lower the GI levels of popular products to fight the growing diabetes crisis. Their product, dubbed “5ibrePlus”, is a gluten-free vegan powder product that can be incorporated into staple foods, such as white rice, in order to lower GI levels while upping fibre content without changing the sensory properties of the food. 

Another player is NamZ – the company isn’t just motivated by agro-biodiversity (they incorporate under-utilised climate-resistant crops into their products), they’re also driven by a mission to make daily staple foods and typically over-processed foods, such as instant noodles, more healthful and nutrient-dense. 

What’s for sure is that food innovation has never been more exciting and never been more bespoke.

Lead image courtesy of Open Meals.